


One Final Goodbye

by Hatsepsut



Series: Not Your Happy Ending [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Loss, Other, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:05:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatsepsut/pseuds/Hatsepsut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot of things have tried to break Hawke and couldn't. But this...the final goodbye to an old friend...this just might.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Final Goodbye

Hawke’s every step was leaden, weighted down by loss. He never thought he could hurt so much, miss another living being so much. Ache so much.

He had lost his baby brother on the way to Kirkwall; his baby sister in the Deep Roads; his mother to that deranged blood mage that went around killing people in the name of love.

Everything he ever touched turned to ashes. Everything he ever loved was taken from him, or left him, walking out on him in the middle of the night, like that cruel elf had done, breaking his heart into splinters of ice and glass. If that wasn’t a statement from the Maker, telling him that he was unworthy of love, then he didn’t know what it was.

A ha-ha-in-your-face-buster, perhaps... The Maker’s sense of humour sucked.

Hawke took another deep breath, then straightened and tossed the shovel to the side. He couldn’t bear seeing the flames take him, his last friend, the last of his family. This shallow grave would have to do.

He wiped the sweat off his face with a corded forearm, then sat at the edge of the grave and took a few gulps of water from his silver flask.

“Well, old friend,” he addressed the corpse next to him. “It was an adventure, wasn’t it?”

But, of course, corpses never talked back, not that this one would, even when life coursed through that strong body, that was now just a pile of flesh, already starting to grow cold.

Hawke sighed. He had never felt so alone, so desperately, dreadfully lonely before. He spared another look to the body laying on its side. He had never betrayed him. Never let him down. Never denied him affection. Never questioned him.

He had died protecting him.

It was ironic; after everything, all the losses, all the death and destruction in his life, the first tears he was shedding where now...

With his dead dog on his side.

 He angrily wiped the moisture from his eyes, then heaved the dead body of his mabari and lowered him slowly down the hole; boy, he was heavy. A beast of a dog, a killing machine, a wardog. But all he could remember was as slobbering, adorably awkward puppy that weaved in and out of his feet and looked at him as if the sun rose in his eyes-for his dog, maybe it did.

He started covering the dog up, feeling like ten kinds of fool. Maker, he couldn’t stop crying. He couldn’t draw breath. He had lost so much over these years, and never broke, never despaired; why was the loss of an animal affecting him like this?

When he finished covering the dog up, he straightened the ground. Taking his dagger out of his belt, he found a piece of wood and started carving on the smooth side, all the while sobbing – he just couldn’t stop. He felt so embarrassed. But he couldn’t stop.

He got up and straightened his clothes, then shoved the marker in the still soft ground, looked at it one last time, then turned around and left- alone, totally alone. No woof following him. No slobbering, panting breath dogging his footsteps. No short tail swishing as it wiggled.

The marker on the grave wrote just two words:

Best friend.

 

 


End file.
